50 Trail Fails (1/2)

Nelda joined the parting on the back patio.If you could call a roman style mosaic in white and blue marble just 'a patio.' Jen was blushing, her bright red cheeks a clear contrast to her pallid complexion.

”What's going on here then?” Nelda asked.

Now SmithGuild was blushing too and clearly tongue-tied.

”What?” Nelda turned to HoneyBeard and raised her hands in mute exasperation.

The satyr replied, sanguinely.”Cat-bird here was asking how a male human rides a horse without crushing his cock.Seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me.”

”Uh-huh,” Nelda said.”But what about the others?”

Jen shrugged and brushed some imaginary lint off her vest.”Hanging around to listen to Phyllis bitch, I imagine.For me, there is nothing to discuss. If I can't have horses, then we definitely need to get back the unicorn. That's exactly why I left everything behind.To be part of something more… something just… more.”

BugleHead popped out from behind a rough-hewn hedge wielding the unicorn horn triumphantly.”Ka-west! Whoot!” he called out, grinning.

Jen clapped excitedly.”Can I see it. Please?” She reached out her hands.

Nelda didn't miss that now it seemed like HoneyBeard had an attack fo the green-eyed monster. [Not Phyllis, jealousy.]Jen and HoneyBeard conferred enthusiastically over the alicorn.HoneyBeard watched with a sour expression on his face.

It occurred to Nelda for the first time that BugleHead seemed a good deal younger than HoneyBeard.If he were a human, she might guess about twenty or a bit more — about the same as Jen.

”Wait,” Nelda said.”BugleHead are you wearing the Jasper crown?” The crown, sized for a parrot head, was tiny.It sat crookedly amidst the satyr's curly locks.

”Yep.” BugleHead grinned at her. ”It was the only way I could get them to give it to me.”

The Jaspers were a score or more of red metallic phoenixes that looked more like enormous parrots.They had quieted down a lot, but quite a few of them could be seen perched in the shrubs and on top of the walls and stumps all around them.Most of them were watching BugleHead.

”Idiot king fo the idiot birds,” HoneyBeard muttered.

They didn't scratch it, did they?” Nelda asked.She joined BugleHead and Jen. The centaur was holding the horn, which was about as long as a walking stick. It tapered from the width of a mini-can evenly down to a slightly blunted point.

It was marked with a deep groove that spiraled around its entire length. Nelda reached out her right hand and touched the ivory-like surface gently.

Inside the curling crease, it seemed like a few small glittering lights lit up.Nelda blinked. [Is that just reflections.] The lights shimmied and swirled up the length of the horn to the tip ad vanished.

”Oh, it tingled,” Jen said.

”I knew you were a unicorn priestess,” BugleHead said.

”What?I've touched it before, and it never did anything.”

The satyr continued to grin like he was having the best birthday ever. ”That was before you decided that you would bring the unicorn back.Now, it knows.”

Nelda rubbed her fingertips; they felt a bit numb.”Because that's not creepy or anything.”